MPs to consider debate on IndyRef2 after petition hits more than 100,000 signatures

More than 100,000 people have signed a petition against a proposed second Scottish referendum.

The petition was started in response to the Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon who – on 13 March (Monday) – called for a second referendum to decide if the nation should split from the rest of the UK.

The UK government will now consider debating the petition in the House of Commons as it has gathered more than necessary 100,000 signatures.

Sturgeon caught Westminster off-guard with her announcement, which came on the same day Theresa May got her Brexit bill passed by the House of Lords, paving the way for her to trigger Article 50.

On Monday, Sturgeon said: "If Scotland is to have a real choice, when the terms of Brexit are known but before it is too late to choose our own course, then that choice must be offered between the Autumn of next year 2018 and the spring of 2019."

Although open to the whole of the UK, the vast majority of signatures come from Scotland itself.

As of Wednesday afternoon, just over 120,000 people had signed the petition, which is almost 25,000 less than the whole of Dundee, Scotland's fourth largest city.

The comments come after an Ipsos MORI poll for STV News – of more than 1,000 respondents between 24 February and 6 March – found that Scottish people likely to vote were split 50/50 on the independence issue.

However, a poll by Survation taken after Sturgeon's speech found that 47% backed independence and 53% backed remaining part of the UK.

Scots voted 55% against splitting from the rest of the UK in 2014.